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Friday 25 September 2009

Final Outcome

Here's some quick images I took of the final product...











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Thursday 24 September 2009

24th Sep

Last night I was working on a net layout based on some of the information taken yesterday. Jonny was saying the idea of having a cup of tea was a very British way of solving things, something Amber said on Monday. With this in mind I mixed it with the decided tag line “don’t make war, make tea”. I began flicking through Google looking for some 40’s war propaganda, as I thought a traditional looking theme with a modern twist would work. It could also work, not a retro, but a vintage style which is currently quite popular. Based on all the information I began to play around with a few ideas that were a pretty good fit for what was discussed that afternoon.

After having worked well into the night again on this idea, I finally had a final idea. The idea of the image was based on what was said “looking at old style themes, tea solves everything”. Not that makes any sense but i went with it anyway combining the old school theme, war and tea. Everything they’d set out to do for the new idea. Went in this morning after 2/3hrs sleep and got the expected really, “awhh ye”.

Karl had also made a pretty good tea stain type as well which was welcomed with open arms. I’ve had no involvement in this project what so ever. My research has been dismissed, ideas ignored and then replicated by others and the same for designs. The only item I’ve suggested was the point of the tea bag tags opening with included text. But this was ignored when I said and I’m pretty after Rob said my idea word for word everyone presumes it’s his idea?

Really was the last thing today and I actually walked away this morning. I’ve put so much time and effort into this project. Getting up at 7 every morning to get ready and here for nine, setting off at half four to get home for quarter past five and then setting off at twenty past 5 to get back into Morley for work. I’ve then been getting home at ten and working till four in the morning on this. All this has been going on since Monday and to go through all that because I didn’t want to let people down by not having as much work. And then, nothing gets used!

I’ve done lots of group work before and had no issues, it’s been productive pretty much stress free. Although this past week I don’t think I’ve ever felt so irritated in years. I honestly think I’d have more luck pitching my ideas to a brick wall than the majority of the group.


Wednesday 23 September 2009

23rd Sep

Today we all came into college to put our ideas and thoughts together, however half the group came in at different times. Because of this all the decision making was already made leaving no real input for me, Rob or Gemma. We all had our ideas, mine been the origami but it can’t be used, as predicted it was also thrown out.

The most frustrating thing about today was when hearing the concept for what we were now doing. Things such as “well I think we shouldn’t do the pack anymore as its not graphic design and it’s too much work”. Things which I clearly stated on Monday, although I was ignored and as such we completely wasted Monday’s session.

The idea was to create a box which contained two mugs and a t-shirt. The pack would be given out to ALL students across the year, running the slogan “make tea not war”. I’m not completely against the idea but I did address the costing issues to handing out two mugs and a shirt to every single student. Apparently that didn’t matter and we went looking for blank shirts and printable iron on paper. An hour and a half later and having bought the paper and looking around numerous shops, ‘the group’ then decides that it’s a bad idea because it’s going to cost too much... To be honest I feel like every single thing I’ve suggested so far goes straight over everyone’s heads, however if someone else suggests what I’ve already said, it’s a brilliant idea!

Although the mugs were still being bought as without them we’d be handing in nothing at all. I didn’t really see why we’d have to buy in these things in the first place as they could have easily been in image form.

After breaking down what each item we would need to make, we were told we’d also be making little tags for the tea bags. I had the idea of making the tag fold open. When you opened it they’d be a quote from one of the students from our research. For instance the tag on top would say “could be worse”, you open the tag and inside is a little horror story from Karl’s student research. No one liked this idea of this although ten minutes later someone else suggested the ‘exact’ same idea which I’d previously said and everyone thought it was amazing!? I’d even shown the group illustrations of exactly what I meant and this idea was identical...

In relation to the brief, 2 mugs and the slogan “make tea not war” is a complete failure. “How to live with people you don’t like?” Buy some different mugs to the ones you already have and stick the kettle on. My opinion isn’t going to make anyone re-reconsider anyway so were now stuck with it.

Research

As mentioned in the previous post, it seemed we were generally going to all follow a similar path of research. With this in mind I thought it would be best to look at other areas to widen our research.

We’ll all be getting together tomorrow to discuss some more ideas and hopefully decide on what it is where actually doing. This will affectively give is one day (Thursday) to complete our idea ready for print on Friday. The thing were going to have to address is the time scale. The main idea being used on Monday was the idea of a pack full of different items, although I don’t think anyone’s certain if this is what we’re doing or not.

With the idea of a pack, full off separate items, we’ll need to discuss if it’s really viable to complete in one day. I think if we did go down this route we’d be making a lot of work for ourselves which may not support a better outcome. Are lots of rushed ideas better than one, well thought out design that fully communicates the message?



Knowing that a large area of research was being undertaken by other members of the group, I began to look into how we could make the product/s more fun. So what I was looking at was how we could take a 2D form and make a fun, functional product from which would relate to the solution.

Having seen lots of origami pieces before I knew there were hundreds of fun ideas that we could incorporate into our designs, possibly on the back of a page. For instance if a housemate dislikes the other person because there messy and untidy, there’s a little rubbish bin you can create.

An issue with this is how easy the nets are to make. Obviously the nets and instructions would have to be easy to follow or the user would simply lose interest.

However the main idea behind this is, if the user can have a form of interaction with the piece it will make us more appealing, interesting and hopefully more memorable. Even from this short space of time, even I am getting bombarded with leaflets, flyers and so on. I think what we need to be doing is finding something that makes us unique, so that we stand out amongst other information already out there.






Monday 21 September 2009

How to live with people you don’t like?

With this question I decided there would probably be two routes in which we could go down for answering the brief. The first being an educational piece, looking at how to resolve the issue, or how to generally avoid the person and in affectively alienate them.

The second plan wasn’t exactly my idea of a piece of work, although we did discuss the idea for quite some time before decided to try and resolve issues. I think from my point of view, telling people how to avoid interaction wouldn’t be the best help or advice for someone who’d have to live with the person on a daily basis. If anything this would act as a form of conflict and eventually make the issue even worse.

At this point however I am a little unsure on what direction the group as a whole has decided. Currently, there seems to be a lot of mixed views and opinions and I don’t think we really progressed too far in terms of having a clear idea for what route we’d chosen.




Although before this I thought it would be a good idea to look at what causes this initial conflict in the first place. Could it be a clash of personality? Would one person with loud energetic behaviour find difficulties with a relaxed, laid back person and so on? Another issue could be more common things such as bad habits, tastes in film and music as well.



One thing that I started to play around with very briefly was an idea worked on how people generally get to know each other. I know I’ve found that on night out for instance, after a few drinks you’re generally on best friend terms with everyone in the room! So if night outs could be a form of an ice breaker, how would people that believe they won’t like each other start to approach in the first place?

Working on the idea of a form of indication, I mulled over the idea of a quick, fun personality tester/questionnaire. The idea was that this could result in an outcome that displayed this person’s interests and likes, whilst still being fairly open and not too specific.

As a form of making this clear to others the outcome could be a paper wrist band, a tear off from the questionnaire sheet itself. With a range of possible colours, the band ‘could’ be worn on a student night out, such as flat parties ECT. This could then indicate to the other students that they do actually have things in common, hopefully making them more inclined to approach and get to know each other.

An idea was all it was but it wasn’t really well received by the group... at all. Although, I think if there is a confrontation or a slight atmosphere with people you don’t ‘think’ you’re going to like, you will generally ignore or avoid them. It is a shame actually and I’ve actually done this myself when I started my more recent job in Morley. From looking at someone who worked there, I automatically decided we wouldn’t get along but we turned out to be really good friends and still are.

It’s the same situation as well, as I had to work with them every day, so it’s a far better solution to get talking and find some common ground. Where all different but who wants to be friends with someone that’s basically themselves?



Well at this point, I’m going to research some of the factors that start dislikes in living with people and hopefully see where we go from there. Tomorrow we’ll be collaborating each other’s research, although I’m pretty sure were all researching the same area anyway, which is a little bit pointless thinking about it now. It probably would have been more productive to each choose an area of research...